


If You're Still Breathing

by softcorevulcan



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Coda, Comfort/Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: s04e19 Coda, Episode: s04e19 Search and Destroy, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-24
Packaged: 2019-08-28 17:11:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16727508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softcorevulcan/pseuds/softcorevulcan
Summary: Their eyes meet, and John knows Harold can understand the thoughts swimming through John’s mind, surging up and engulfing everything.If Harold had just taken a gun. Then John wouldn’t have had to face this again.There have been too many close calls.(Coda for Season 4, episode 19 Search & Destroy. What might have happened between Harold and John, after John tried convincing Harold to learn to use a gun, after Harold is nearly shot by Samaritan agents with John the only thing stopping them. How John wants both of them to be better prepared.)





	If You're Still Breathing

**Author's Note:**

> I’m still working my way through this show for the first time. ;w; It’s beautiful, honestly. I also just finished Terra Incognita, a few episodes after this, and I can’t believe the character I relate to the most is the emotionally closed off ex-CIA agent who needs to work on letting people in, but there it is. 
> 
> "And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones  
> 'Cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs  
> Setting fire to our insides for fun  
> Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong  
> The lovers that went wrong -
> 
> And you caused it -  
> And you caused it -"
> 
> \- Youth by Daughter

It’s still flashing before his eyes, happening again, over and over. Harold kneeling, taking cover behind the side of the car. And John turns to look, to check - and there’s a man between them, about to pull a trigger.

John takes care of him. The body - the man, still alive - falls, and John can see Harold clearly again. Their eyes meet, and John knows Harold can understand the thoughts swimming through John’s mind, surging up and engulfing everything.

If Harold had just taken a gun. Then John wouldn’t have had to face this again.

There have been too many close calls. The other day, Harold gulped down poison, cutting the moments close - he had been lying in a hotel room, dying, as eleven minutes ticked on by.

Not long before that, a girl - a girl they’d tried to help once - had led Harold to Samaritan agents. Several enemies, all with guns trained on one specific threat. Harold should never have walked into that.

 

\--

 

John remembers sitting at a kitchen table, in the seat beside Jessica. In the house of her parents, letting the words of her parents’ conversation drift over him only half heard, because he was too busy smiling over at her and thinking about how lucky he was. How impossible the whole moment had been.

He remembers laying in bed with her, in the dark, her breathing beside him. He couldn’t stop thinking about the things he’d seen, as she kept on dreaming. She was so unaware, of everything.

John probably didn’t know the worst of it, yet. Maybe the thing he was most afraid of, at the time, was letting her in. Accepting everything.

He thought the things he found once he left her behind, were the worse things. But when he came back - what had dragged Jessica in, had been something altogether more -

Running away, or sticking around - either way the people he loved kept attracting death. Kept finding things just as bad, things they’d be alive for, until the inevitable end. Harold can’t stop walking into the danger.

John can’t watch and do nothing again, he can’t walk away from what he knows is wrong. He made a mistake, last time. There was no choice he could have made, that would’ve been as terrible. Choosing to leave Jessica behind - to face it alone.

He still lays awake at night, and it’s like Jessica is still beside him dreaming. And all the darkness is still around him, and he can’t stop watching the walls and the windows and listening to every potential noise in the muffled silence. Just like back then, he thinks about everything he can’t do for the people he loves. It’s impossible, to stop all the threats. To keep them breathing.

John can still see the barrel lined up at Harold. At how his eyes stared back at John, wide and afraid and in shock, as the threat neutralizes, the enemy crashing to the ground.

_“I won’t be around forever. I need to know you can protect yourself, once I’m gone.”_

_“When the time comes for me to pick up a firearm, all will truly be lost.”_

Harold is too good. John always picks the people that are far too kind for the dangers they run headfirst into.

Maybe it’s because they might need him. Maybe he’s always had a bit of a hero complex.

Then he had to go and screw it all up, by leaving them. Because he thinks he’s one of the dangers.

Or maybe it’s because he can’t bear to lose them to the inevitable. If he disappears first, controls how the loss occurs - a loss of presence, instead of a loss of life - then maybe it won’t be as horrible. Except, a loss of presence, of time spent together, doesn’t actually keep the other person alive. John wishes it did. But the universe can’t be that kind.

He can bear to stay with Harold. John can make himself accept the fact that he won’t be able to control how he loses him. But John will be damned if the world tries to take Harold first. The only eventuality he is prepared to face, is doing whatever it takes to keep Harold breathing.

He’s going to keep them breathing this time. John can’t be around after - he can’t go kill the killer, and try to fill the hole, the gap, the aching pain of loss with vengeance that can never make up for all the wrong. He should have been there for Jessica. The man he killed after the fact means nothing. Life that was lost can’t come back. If John had just arrived sooner - or never left - he could have slit that man's throat, shot a bullet through his temple, done something, anything, before -

Before the only life that really mattered was gone.

John would gladly take a bullet for Harold. He’d take anything. Whatever it took.

But the idea of leaving - dying, for an instant more for Harold - just to have Harold lost right after. Because Harold wouldn’t pick up a gun - or because maybe Harold wouldn’t be able to, not fast enough, caught off guard. Harold crashing downward, over John’s body, trying to cradle it and shouting, incoherent, maybe hoping somehow he’d be able to drag John to a hospital and bring him back. Call him back from death, back to Harold.

John knows the danger surrounding Harold is highly trained, unending, encompassing the world. That’s not a threat John can just charge in and eliminate in one grand gesture. It’s too big, too much. It’s not something one man can stop - not even a killer. Not even him.

Even if John isn’t afraid of getting too close, of connecting - there’s no way this doesn’t end one specific way. John loses Harold.

It doesn’t matter who dies first. It’s what will happen. There’s no other way this thing can go.

 

\--

 

It’s the middle of the night, and John is walking to the underground hideout. The thoughts are keeping him awake tonight. This time he couldn’t just watch them and do nothing, not again. Not with Harold’s wide eyes reflecting back in the darkness of his mind, the attacker dropping to the ground.

John has a handgun in his grip.

When he enters, Harold is in the train car, on his computer, typing something. Bear is sleeping, dreaming, over to the side, in his usual spot.

John is sure Harold hears him coming closer, but Harold just keeps typing, unperturbed.

A thought, surging, of John with a gun against the back of Harold’s head. Begging him to understand, to understand that this is where they end. That if Harold can’t push himself to change, to be more willing to live, then this is what will happen. Then it won’t matter if it’s John pulling the trigger, or some unknown entity before or after John’s been taken down, Harold holding him and shaking, past desperation. John needs Harold to understand.

Harold either decides to find a way to start caring about his own life, or turns around, looks John in the eyes, and tries to explain how in the hell he’s going to justify to John that he’ll be dying. How somehow John is supposed to live with the guilt of that.

But John doesn’t lift up his gun, doesn’t press it against Harold. John stops to stand, close behind him, watches the code trail across the screen. Harold continues his work, comfortable with John so close.

“I can’t be the reason you die.”

Harold pauses, his hands stalling over the letters of the keyboard. John lets Harold take his time, watches as Harold slowly, deliberately, turns and pushes himself up to his feet.

It’s dark outside, up there in the world, and John should probably be asleep. “What are you talking about?” Harold asks, inches away from John. Close enough for John to reach out with his free hand and tug the man closer, to make him stare back, make it so Harold can’t avoid him, can’t avoid this. Close enough that if John lifts his gun, just a bit, then a bullet would be lined up with that body. With Harold. But John keeps the weapon pointed down, keeps his other hand to himself, arms against his own sides.

“You can’t keep refusing to protect yourself. You have to be willing to keep yourself alive.” Harold just looks at him, bright alert eyes despite the time of night. He isn’t afraid, there is no fear or hesitance or inkling of body language to indicate that Harold wants to back away, or run.

Harold should want to run. He has to start understanding.

“If I were to try to shoot you, would you even try to dodge?”

It’s silent. The sounds of the city above are a muted hush, a thick static in the air, nothing more.

“What would be the point? I wouldn’t be able to avoid it, if you meant for it to hit me.”

“That isn’t the point.”

“Then what is -” Harold stiffens up, like suddenly he is more aware of how intimately close John is standing. Of the gun in John’s hand - only a few close inches, a brush of bodies, away. “I’m sorry.”

John feels so tired. His heart is pounding, too alert, too focused in on this moment, on this need to make Harold understand. He’s so sick of being terrified. John can’t keep trying to go to sleep at night, the flashes of Harold almost dying - of the inevitability brushing across John’s peripheral. John hasn’t left, he’s still here this time - there has got to be a way to avoid it. To keep Harold alive.

“For the close call today. Or rather, yesterday, now.”

That isn’t the only one, John wants to say. John wants to drop the gun and latch onto Harold with both hands and thrash him, rush him and press him against the wall and make him hit it with a crash. He wants to see Harold’s eyes flash wide, Harold’s lips drop open, to draw in a sudden breath, for Harold to understand the fear that is eating John alive.

He wants Harold to explain to him how all of those other close calls lately were supposed to be justified. But John knows, really, there isn’t an answer there to be found. There is no reason that is worth Harold’s life.

John wants to press against him, into him, clutch Harold against his body and cherish the fact they’re both at least still here, still breathing, right now. Wants to beg Harold, What about all of the other times?

But he knows Harold can’t promise anything, can’t make it right. Even if Harold hadn’t made any mistakes, some day another time will come, another chance for death to take him away. They both know that. Harold can’t explain to him something like that.

The answer to those questions are beyond the grasp of humans.

Maybe Harold’s machine knows.

Still, it wouldn’t matter, unless the machine could help John make sure Harold stays alive.

But Harold probably already destroyed that possibility.

John moves forward, closes the small gap between their bodies, until they’re leaning against each other. He uses his free hand to grab hold of Harold’s back, keep him there. “You have to be more careful.”

Harold is looking at him, brave enough to stay, but it’s clear Harold is at a loss for words. Because they both know that Harold can’t promise that.

“I am trying,” Harold settles on, finally. He looks like he wants to close what’s left of the distance between them. Even though for the most part, there isn’t any. They both know trying won’t ever be enough.

“Promise you’ll protect yourself, do more, next time something goes wrong.” Please, John doesn’t add. But John thinks, the word please is more a thread, an underlying current to everything he already does. It’s not a stretch for Harold to realize that it’s there, that John is always asking.

“John,” Harold is clutching John back now, one of his hands holding tight to John’s arm, above where John is still clinging onto his gun.

They’re frozen then, for a moment, stuck holding onto each other and both unsure of what to do. Both unsure of what could possibly be done. There’s no way, not a single one, that John can figure, that helps them escape the inevitability.

Harold is going to die, and they both don’t know how to take that.

Maybe Harold - as he keeps holding onto John, desperate like if he lets go even a little, even if only for a moment, then John will slip away and be lost - maybe, Harold is more afraid of what happens just before that. Of what John will be willing to do to try to keep Harold breathing, even if it’s only for a few extra seconds.

God, Harold looks like he can’t bear to stop staring at John. Like he can’t endure the idea of something going wrong. Because to Harold, something going wrong, is something hurting John.

Harold doesn’t even factor himself in.

“You’re important, you know,” John says, and he doesn’t mean anything about Harold being smart, or talented, or critical in the grand scheme of things in the world. John means, to him. Harold is important, just because he is.

Then, John is kissing him. Dragging Harold’s body even more against his, with the hand pressed against Harold’s back. And Harold’s grasping fingers are clinging even tighter, pulling John impossibly closer in return, trying to keep John locked there, as their lips touch, as long as he can.

Harold’s grip feels like forever.

If only Harold held onto his own life, this dearly.

But that’s not important now. That’s gone, muffled, beneath everything else. Beneath this moment - where John pushes them forward, until the back of Harold’s thighs hit the desk. The desk where John gently sets down the gun he’s been carrying, so that he can bring that other hand up to hold the back of Harold’s neck and tangle into his hair.

Harold is holding onto him, so tight, and they’re both pressing forward against each other. Then something snaps, and instead of just reacting to what’s happening, Harold surges to meet him, clumsy hands slipping up John’s arm and shoulders, clutching, dragging. Harold is holding him, solid, safe, and John feels for the first time in a long time, like he might not get lost.

Like he couldn’t leave if he wanted to. If the fear swam up and dragged him down, Harold would keep it from sinking him, from taking him away. And this thread holding them together is alive and tangling all together, and Harold’s digging his fingers into John’s shoulders, trying to memorize John like all of this might be fleeting, trying to keep John here. To make him come back. Stay.

There are no other thoughts. There is no danger, no darkness, not right here, not right now. It's just Harold in his arms, kissing back, taking control and holding him tight, keeping him steady.


End file.
